She should easily be in the top 2 for the primary, and with the Republicans splitting the vote, will likely be the front runner coming out of the primary. If she can be held below 50%, she’ll lose in the runoff, unless the Tea Party voters boycott the runoff.

Louisiana has an ‘open’ primary, which doesn’t mean what it does in some other states. All the candidates from all of the parties run in the same primary in November, when most folks are having a general election. If no one gets more than 50 percent, the top two vote getters have a runoff in a ‘general election’ held in December.

The two top vote getters in the primary can be from the same or different parties.

So if you have Mary as the only Dem, and 3 Republicans splitting the vote, the likely outcome is that she’ll have a runoff against one of the Republicans in December. When the Republicans get their act together and just run one candidate, they can sometimes grab the primary win and avoid a runoff with a Dem.

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